'A Decline in Abortions, for Whatever Reason, Leads Us Closer to Our Goal'

Director of Priests for Life Comments on Guttmacher Study

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute announced Monday that in 2011 the US abortion rate was the lowest it's been since 1973, the year Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion.

In publishing the results of its latest census, the institute claimed that the declining rate of abortion is not related to the surge in state-level abortion restrictions.

Father Frank Pavone, national director for Priests for Life, commented briefly on the debate surrounding Guttmacher's evaluation of the numbers.

“Abortions are declining. The two sides of the abortion debate disagree as to why, but I agree with the assessment of the National Right to Life Committee that the Guttmacher Institute does not give due attention to how the public debate over the status of the unborn child in our society has contributed to the decline in the numbers," Father Pavone said.

But beyond the debate over the cause, Father Pavone declared, "A decline in abortion, for whatever reason, leads us closer to our goal of protecting children in the womb by law, because the fewer abortions there are, the more legislators will consider it realistic to change public policy on the matter, and the more judges will consider it prudent to uphold such changes."

Other information from the Guttmacher study includes the following:

• Half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.

•Twenty-one percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.

• In 2011, 1.06 million abortions were performed, down 13% from 1.21 million in 2008. From 1973 through 2011, nearly 53 million legal abortions occurred.

• Each year, 1.7% of women aged 15–44 have an abortion [2]. Half have had at least one previous abortion.

• At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and at 2008 abortion rates, one in 10 women will have an abortion by age 20, one in four by age 30 and three in 10 by age 45.